Deregulation Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Perry of Southwark

Thursday 6th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, tourism is a vital component of the UK economy, and is predicted to be a key part of our economic recovery and of future job creation. The tourism industry is predicted to grow at an annual rate of 3.8% until 2025, which is significantly faster than the overall UK economy. The sector supports more than 3 million jobs, which is 9.6% of all UK jobs. The benefits are spread around the UK. They are driven by domestic tourism spending at places including attractions and the seaside.

The British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions represents this sector, and it helped me put together this amendment. Most of the tourism spend comes from domestic tourists on day trips, which is the demographic that visits BALPPA’s attractions. In 2012, the expenditure on overnight domestic tourism trips in Britain was valued at £24 billion, and a further £57 billion was spent by domestic tourists on day trips. Summer holidays are crucial to this, but other holidays in the warmer months with longer days are also very important. This is because takings at attractions are much better when days are longer and, of course, when the weather is more pleasant.

These times are also crucial because they are the only ones when families, who are the core part of these attractions’ business, can go away together. This period is vital, because attractions and seaside areas then have to survive the winter, when tourism falls away. Many attractions close during that time, and so their takings in the winter are nil. If the weather is bad over just one or two weeks in the summer, that can be the difference between making a profit or a loss.

In April last year, Michael Gove made a speech at a conference at which he said that he wanted to reduce summer holidays from six to four weeks. A few weeks later, on 1 July last year, the Deregulation Bill was published and included a clause enabling this. Clearly, the Department for Education would not be advocating this clause if it did not expect some schools to use it. It would cause chaos for families with children at different schools that have different holidays. Even a single group of schools changing term times in a single area would have an impact on the tourist industry. Clause 51 and Schedule 15 are of deep concern to the tourism industry.

Where similar schemes have been introduced in the US, the evidence clearly shows that moving school holidays reduces tourism spending, which is not made up elsewhere. In Pennsylvania, moving the school year to start before Labor Day—which is the first Monday in September—had a dramatic negative impact on economic development and employment, costing the Pennsylvanian economy more than $378 million annually. In South Carolina, the move was estimated to have a $180 million impact on the state, and more than $8 million was lost in tax revenues. In Texas, returning to later school start dates resulted in higher direct tourism expenditure, estimated at $251.9 million per year, and 6,635 more permanent jobs. This is despite the actual number of instructional days staying similar. Eleven US states have now seen fit to introduce laws which mandate school years because they appreciate that there are economic benefits.

Surely all the above merit some consideration in detail about what the impact of these changes would be, yet no assessment has been made. The Department for Education, in advocating Clause 51 and Schedule 15, has singularly failed to engage with the tourism industry which feels strongly about this. The DCMS has admitted that there has been no evaluation of the policy’s impact on tourism. On 30 October, Kate Green MP asked,

“the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of deregulating school holidays on (a) tourism jobs in seaside areas and (b) seaside economies”.

Mrs Helen Grant replied:

“There has been no specific assessment of the impact the Government’s proposals in the Deregulation Bill will have on tourism jobs. However, impact assessments have been completed on the overall impact of proposals within the Bill. Government is confident that tourism jobs and seaside economies will not be adversely affected overall. Whilst the measures will extend an existing flexibility to a greater number of schools, this does not mean that all schools will change their term dates. This Government believes that decisions about term dates are best made locally. The Department for Education is working with the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions and others to ensure the Department’s advice to schools on their new freedoms is clear that term dates should be set in the interests of pupils’ education and should also consider parents and local businesses”.

That is quite a miraculous statement. We all know that the Government are confident that they will not be adversely affected overall. That is an answer that does not exactly fill me or the tourism industry with confidence. Throughout the Bill’s progress, tourism representatives have been raising strong objections that their concerns have not been addressed. The unintended consequences associated with passing these provisions are enormous. They should not be included in the Bill until their impact has been properly evaluated. I beg to move.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, I shall defend paragraph 3(3) for many reasons. First, it is only right that maintained schools should have the same freedom as academies and free schools. A vast number of secondary schools and an increasing number of primary schools already have the freedom to determine their own term dates. It seems quite invidious that we are not allowing maintained schools to have the same freedom.

Secondly, my noble friend made an impassioned plea on behalf of the tourist industry, and we have all seen the lobbying material it has sent. I should like to make an impassioned plea on behalf of parents. As we all know, there is plenty of evidence that if parents can take holidays only in the one prescribed period when all schools are closed, they end up paying two, three or, in some cases, four times what it would cost them to have the same holiday at a slightly different time. I am just as interested in the finances of parents and their wish to be able to take their children out at different times because schools would not all be taking their holidays at exactly the same time.

My noble friend mentioned that it would be chaos for parents if they had children in different schools. For those of us who live in London, that is already the case. Different boroughs in London have slightly different term dates and many parents have children in one borough for primary school and in another for secondary school and they cope with that. It is not chaos; it is a perfectly simple thing that parents deal with in the small amount of time for which the schools coincide.

Over the years, various learned think tanks have come up with all sorts of suggestions about changing school terms. Some have suggested that we should go to four terms or that we should split the year into two semesters, each with a break, rather like American universities. They have adduced all sorts of psychological learning reasons for why this would be better for children than the very long gap that we currently have in the summer. I should like to think that this freedom given to schools would enable some of them to experiment in that way, based on very good pedagogical evidence.

I am for freedom. I think the tourist industry would not only cope very well—as it does; I have great confidence in the tourist industry—but would find that its period of busy activity would be extended if there were slight overlaps with some schools closing early in July and others going on to early August and so on. The freedom would enable parents—who, heaven knows, are strapped enough at present in the very grim times we have been going through—to take their family holidays over a slightly more extended period when the prices would not be double and treble what they are in the very compressed period when all schools take their holidays at the same. I think the tourism industry would adapt, and perhaps prosper, in this country.